Techno-News Blog

by Cornell Barnard, News 10 Sacramento

Webcams used to be only as good as the cord that would take it. Now, wireless technology has evolved with smaller and lighter versions giving the user the ability to monitor an entire house or part of their neighborhood. “I like it, but it worries me because the technology is so small,” said UC Davis computer professor Matt Bishop. “It gives people new ways to spy or monitor, depending on which term suits you.” The latest webcam made by Vue is as light as a hummingbird and runs on a camera battery.

http://www.news10.net/news/story.aspx?storyid=82567&catid=348

by Brooke Crothers, CNew news.com

China has muscled into the No. 2 spot on the list of the world’s fastest supercomputers thanks, in part, to specialized Nvidia graphics chips: a technology that Intel is now pursuing to keep pace with this new trend in high-performance computing. China’s Nebulae supercomputer is located at the recently constructed National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen, and achieved 1.271 petaflops/s (1.271 quadrillion floating point operations per second) running the Linpack benchmark, which put it in the No. 2 spot on the widely reported Top500 list.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20006450-64.html

By Alex Alvarez, FishBowlNY

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the unveiling of a new digital viewer technology they have developed with input from Wired magazine, which turned to Adobe when designing its recently-launched iPad app after having struggled a bit with Apple’s staunch anti-Adobe stance. In fact, the magazine’s June issue Reader application, now available on Apple’s iTunes store, was created using Adobe. David Burkett, vice president and general manager of creative solutions for Adobe, cites the company’s work with Wired as pivotal in creating a worthwhile digital magazine reading experience.

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/magazines/adobe_introduces_new_technology_for_digital_magazines_starting_with_wired_163198.asp

by the Seattle Times

Imagine ultra-high definition TVs not much thicker than a millimetre, electronic books made with plastic screens that flex like a magazine and displays that let you touch a virtual version of yourself on the other side of the glass. The technology to build these crazy new gadgets was shown in Seattle last week during Display Week, the Society for Information Display conference. A combination science fair and industry bazaar, the event attracted almost 6000 people from most of the companies developing TVs, monitors, touch screens, electronic books and cellphone screens.

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/technology/108527/screen-technology-taste-future

By Benjamin Pimentel, Seattle Times

The tablet frenzy began in January with a spate of announcements from computer makers. Apple’s iPad was the subject of heavy rumors long before its formal announcement Jan. 27. Other PC makers, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo, tried to pre-empt that news somewhat with the announcement of their own coming tablet devices at the Consumer Electronics Show a few weeks earlier. But other than the iPad, none of these other products has yet seen the light of day. Instead, what has followed has been a curious waiting game of sorts.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2011988001_bttablets31.html

by Computerworld

Skype has launched a new version of its client for Apple’s iPhone that can make calls to other Skype users over a 3G network. Skype will not charge for Skype to Skype calls over 3G until next year, although network operators may make charges for data usage. The new software offers improved sound quality on the iPhone 3GS, and on recent models of the iPod Touch, which can only place calls over Wi-Fi.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/16219/call_skype_to_skype_with_an_iphone_3g

by Wailin Wong, Lubbock Online

It’s become a familiar pattern: Facebook rolls out changes. A backlash ensues, and the social networking giant makes further changes to quell the unease. The latest iteration of this cycle played out Wednesday, when Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg announced revisions to Facebook’s controversial privacy settings after users and consumer groups complained that the site was pushing for too much personal information to be made public.

http://lubbockonline.com/business/2010-05-30/facebook-privacy-crossroads

by Dan Boniface, Colorado News 9

We all recognize that the way we watch TV is changing. But new technology is promising to change the way we watch TV even more. “Controlling my content and setting up my DVR and watching from any room or when I’m away from home, those are things that you can do today and we’re really building on that going forward,” Jeff Weber, vice president of AT&T U-verse, said. The future of television is shaping up to be really cool. A suite of applications, games, DVRs, on-demand video, 3-D, even augmented reality.

http://www.9news.com/money/consumer/article.aspx?storyid=140019&catid=103

by Boston Globe

Consumer Reports recently tested several new sets in its labs — the first hands-on evaluation outside the manufacturers’ facilities — and found that the sets live up to their advance billing, but the average consumer shouldn’t rush out to buy one. For consumers who are satisfied with their current HDTV and who aren’t burning to have the latest technology, CR recommends waiting to buy. The price of 3-D TVs and Blu-ray players is likely to drop, and there should be more 3-D content to watch in time.

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/05/30/is_3_d_worth_the_price/

by Otago Daily Times

Another battle is brewing between and Google and Apple, and this time it may come into your living room. A week after Google announced its bid for the hearts and eyes of America’s TV viewers with Internet-based Google TV, its rival is reportedly poised to overhaul its own offering, Apple TV. The stakes are high. Whoever wins could play a leading role in one of the great technological transformations of recent memory by piping limitless video and other content from the internet and television to the small screen.

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/technology/108313/apple-tv-overhaul-planned-meet-google-tv-challenge

By David Murphy, PC Magazine

The technology world has been anticipating Amazon’s response to the launch of Apple’s iPad for months, and it looks like the company is getting close to unveiling its latest iteration of its Kindle device. However, if reports from Bloomberg are indeed accurate, it doesn’t appear that Amazon plans to step up and compete toe-to-toe against the features of Apple’s popular handheld product.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364336,00.asp

By PETER SVENSSON, Associated Press

So what is 4G? Broadly speaking, it’s a new way to use the airwaves, designed from the start for the transmission of data rather than phone calls. To do that, it borrows aspects of the latest generation of Wi-Fi, the short-range wireless technology. For consumers, 4G means, in the ideal case, faster access to data. For instance, streaming video might work better, with less stuttering and higher resolution. Videoconferencing is difficult on 3G and might work better on 4G. Multiplayer video games may benefit too.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g-9J1V_QON7EkHyfAv96mxHNuPAgD9G19JI00

by Alex Williams, Read, Write, Web

Google Wave has graduated to Google Apps, showing a resurgence in user interest that seemed unlikely just a few months ago. It took a lot of criticism over the past year, following its launch at Google I/O in 2009. Its blank white page was confusing and people were unsure how to use it – it almost left too much to the imagination. But to Google’s credit, Wave has come a long way, particularly with its UI. Now you have the option of using Google Wave to co-edit, for instance, in Google Docs or brainstorm on topics. You can use it for discussions or in meetings.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/05/google-wave-graduates-to-googl.php

by John Capone, Mediapost

In an interesting experiment Read Write Web is liveblogging the Facebook privacy press conference using Google Wave. RWW might risk mixing its metaphors so the speak, but has the added value of opening the entire Wave up for comments, annotation and conversation when the conference is over. Of course Wave is now open to all – so the coverage is available to everyone!

http://www.mediapost.com/blogs/raw/?p=2631

By Anne Fisher, CNN

Cybersecurity “has become white-hot in the last 24 months, and there is a growing sense of urgency among government officials and technology executives,” says Tom Silver, a senior vice president at IT job board Dice.com. “Efforts to plug holes in network protection, keep personal data secure, and make national security information safe from cyberattack are being hampered by a lack of experienced talent.” Techies with security expertise can command a salary premium of 20% or more over candidates who lack those skills, he adds.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/24/news/economy/cybersecurity.experts.wanted.fortune/

By Jane Wakefield, BBC

Mobile banking has transformed the way people in the developing world transfer money and now it is poised to offer more sophisticated banking services which could make a real difference to people’s lives. Currently 2.7bn people living in the developing world do not have access to any sort of financial service. At the same time 1bn people throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia own a mobile phone. As a result, mobile money services are springing up all over the developing world. According to mobile industry group the GSMA there are now 65 mobile money systems operating around the globe, with a further 82 about to be launched.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10156667.stm

by BBC

Sir Tim Berners-Lee was a founder of the Institute for Web Science Funding for a new Institute for Web Science, set up with a £30m grant from the department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis) has been cut. The collaboration between the Universities of Oxford and Southampton, announced in March 2010, was led by web creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt. Both are also leading the government’s open data project data.gov.uk. BIS said it was a “low priority” as it announced its efficiency savings.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10152929.stm

By Victoria Gill, BBC

The camera was already trained on the two insurgents before the people watching the monitors had even spotted them. As they parked their vehicles and removed a large package from the back, it zoomed in and followed them. The two men moved across a patch of vegetation that made them trickier to see, so the surveillance monitor automatically switched to thermal imaging and followed them closely as they tried to conceal themselves behind a building. The suspicious pair were in fact actors. This was an experiment. But the imaging forms part of what the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) says will be used by soldiers within five years – a package of surveillance systems that can recognise insurgents or terrorists.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10175960.stm

by Brooke Crothers, CNet news.com

The iPad is set to surpass Apple Mac computer shipments by September, while production levels for the yet-to-be-released iPhone 4G will hit 12 million by that time, according to an analyst. “By the September quarter, iPad sales volumes should exceed Mac, which, on average, are about 3 million on a quarterly basis,” said Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, in a phone interview Friday. Kumar said that iPad shipments will “easily” reach 4 million by the end of the September quarter.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20006281-64.html

by Dan Ackerman, Crave CNet news.com

A pair of the most-anticipated mobile computers from this year’s CES show were Lenovo’s U1 Hybrid and Skylight smartbook. Both ran a custom widget-based Linux OS (sometimes also called Skylight), and were powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. But since then, both devices seem to have fallen off the map, and now we think we know why. Both systems are getting a software overhaul, jumping to the Android platform in search of better performance and more usability.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20006331-1.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

by Erica Ogg, CNet news.com

When the new iPhone debuts in June, Microsoft’s search engine could be the new default choice, according to a report in TechCrunch. However, a source told CNET that, while there have been on-again, off-again talks about Bing being added as an option, Google is likely to remain the default search engine.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-20006354-260.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20